Swamp Girl

I need to cast my top waters more now that it's almost September. They were ***** last fall.

The woods are just soooooo rocky. Iowa can have ten feet of topsoil at river bottoms. Maine doesn't always have 10 mm of soil atop the bedrock. Then there are the bowling ball-sized rocks and the Chevy sized boulders. Even if my gear stayed in the cart, they'd be bounced so much that I'd spend five minutes untangling my rods.

Al, go to YouTube and do a search for "how to upload a video to YouTube." You'll find many videos walking you through all the steps. Good luck! I'd love to see you fishing. @AlabamaSpothunter, being a good guy, used to encourage me to record videos of my fish, but I already feel like this walking through the woods to fish:

Then please do this, Al. PLEASE!

I sure hope the answer is "YES! Here's how:...." because I'd love to see video of you catching bass, Al.

Never eat oranges and chocolate milk for breakfast before deep sea fishing. Trust me.

Well, if the pros are fishing for a sponsor for a bait they love, I'm going fishing too: I'd sure love Rapala to sponsor me. The ONLY bait I'd like them to send me is 4" Crush City Mayors. My bass sure chew through those and I do mention them a LOT here at Bass Resource. Wait? What? I'd have to turn pro? Sigh. I'd look so sad at the tournaments in my scuffed canoe with zero screens.

I had to Google ^this.^ I know one of your brothers, a guy who seems to hold deep knowledge about nearly everything.

I always felt that a follow as almost as exciting as hooking a musky. Congrats, Tim, on the great day and on reaching 51. We're at the same point, count wise, as we're both at about half of our 2024 totals.

Thanks, Kirtley. It was fun bouncing about and looking for schools of bass. I did try a couple shorelines, but didn't even trigger a single hit. I did get two, open water hits on surface lures, a popper and Plopper, but couldn't hook either. I wore shorts and a fleece top and actually was hot because I was working hard positioning the boat. Kirtley, I caught 23 bass and 22 bass my last two outings. Fingers crossed the cooler temps are ending the August doldrums!

It was 64 degrees when I launched at four in the afternoon and windy, overcast, and rainy. I had decided to troll. If I hadn't, the wind would have kept pushing me into the weedy shoreline and the bass at my pal's pond aren't in the weeds anymore. They're off-shore. I caught 22 bass in three hours and 15 minutes. The quality was top notch. Until my 22nd bass, I hadn't caught one under 16.5 inches and the 16.5 inchers were thick. When I troll, I troll with two rods. One was an underspin and one had a T-rigged crawdad. Six times, both rods snapped back within seconds of each other, telling me the bass were still schooling. Twice, I managed to land both bass, netting one and then the other. It was NOT easy in the wind and waves. I started with four 16.5-inchers and then started catching bigger bass: 17, 18, and 19-inchers. My second-to-last bass had a big head. She was a 19-incher and I landed her with maximum difficulty. She hit my little Shimano 1000 reel, which spools little line. She hit so hard that she popped the bail open and stripped the line down to the final coil. I decided to handline her to the canoe. Because I was using both hands to control tension on the line, I had to hand-land her too. It all actually worked, surprising me. Here she is, a four-pounderish fish: Here are other fine northern bass: I caught some smallies too. Here's one: I was going to fish tomorrow morning, but I'm too tired. It was a super fun evening, but sucked the sap outta me. I'm at 1,025 for the year.

That's high praise. I own three canoes, so I'm not shopping for another boat, but if I were....

@The Baron: I'm always happy to see Wes and you fishing together, whatever you catch or don't catch. Then when Pops is part of the pic, well, that's a perfect photo.

I love the name "Bigwater." And I REALLY love that it lets you launch on days that I'm housebound.

I try all of the above from time to time. I have the best success with pausing. However, the kid uses a steady, fast retrieve, as opposed to my slower retrieve with occasional action, and he catches as much as me.

Thanks. It's cool that you can see the action. I can't, for whatever reasons.

Thanks for the heads up. I still cast one from time to time to see if they're working again. Our nights are consistently in the low fifties, so I expect they'll be on fire again soon. It's weird how my underspins have worked all summer long, given how similar they are to spinnerbaits.

@Dwight Hottle has caught so many 7-8 lb. bass that I think you can safely change your PB to 7-8 lbs.

One thing that was cool about the schooling bass was that they were hitting my underspins as they fell. I typically like my underspins to tick the rocky bottom or the tops of weeds if they're there. So, when I reach an area, I'll count one-one-thousand two-one thousand etc. as they fall, searching for the deepest count that will let me retrieve them without weeds. Well, at this flat, it was a six count that let me retrieve weed-free, so I'd cast, count to six, and begin my retrieve, but when I began my retrieve, I already had a bass, telling me they were hitting it on the fluttering fall. And this is why I switched to a Whopper Plopper deep into a sunny morning because I figured they were looking up to feed.

The bait monkey isn't going to be happy to read what you wrote because the bait monkey's business is predicated upon the belief that there's one specific lure that will catch each bass and you have to own all the lures to have a chance at catching each bass.

They'd have kicked my butt too. I'll launch this afternoon in 8 mph wind, but with a 15' 6" canoe that only weighs 32 pounds, I'll be bullied. I'll stick to trolling unless I can find some sheltered water to cast that holds bass.

By working the bait, do you mean varying the retrieve?

My spinnerbaits were on fire in the spring, but have since cooled.

Yep.

What a windy week! 40 mph and 30 mph and 25 mph. Wow! I'm glad you had a great time.